SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Opponents of the plan to build a new library in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood by demolishing the old one have sued to save a building on track for designation as an historic landmark.

The architect behind the lawsuit, Howard Wong, said the San Francisco Public Library should retrofit and preserve the existing building as it has done with other branches designed by the firm Appleton & Wolfard in the years after World War II.

“The library itself has for many years recognized it as a historic resource. It is one of the best mid-century modernist libraries,” he said.

Wong wants a San Francisco Superior Court judge to order the city to carry out another environmental impact review that might persuade the city not to demolish the building.